Two of my recent SoulCollage® cards, each belonging to the Council suit, remind me of my place in time, sandwiched between the long arc of history past and the infinite future that has yet to unfold.
I am reminded of the importance of “being here now,” of staying mindfully in the present, that NOW is all I have. But my NOW is balanced precariously between the history of the past and the unknown of the future.
My NOW is informed by the past – not only my personal past, but the history held in my pulsing veins, in my DNA. The history of my ancestors, the history of my land, my country, this planet, the Universe. To be ignorant of that history is to miss the mystery and the miracle that I stand here at all in this NOW. To be ignorant of that history is to risk repeating its mistakes. To be ignorant of that history is to risk being ungrateful to all those upon whose sacrifice and struggle I stand. To be ignorant of that history is to risk never knowing what I’ve gained, never mourning what I’ve lost. Never knowing, really, who I am and where I come from. History is the scaffold upon which my NOW is built, it is the skeleton ’round which my flesh and blood is woven.
And from here in this NOW, I am empowered to dream ahead, to envision the future. I am tempted to ask She Who Sees the Future to show me what is to come. But I know that whatever she may see is only a potential future, for it is not yet written what shall come. That ambiguity, that unkown and unknowableness of the future brings meaning into how I spend this NOW. What future will I create through the actions of this moment? What legacy will I leave for those that follow? What mistakes do I bequeath to future generations? What is gained by my own sacrifice and struggle? What stories, what history will be woven from this moment in time, this NOW that is all I have?
And, of course, this NOW in which I stand is no more mine alone than was the past or will be the future. This NOW of ours is a multi-player game. No one of us, including myself, wields total power. It is the collective forces that shape both past and future. Collective forces at play in the NOW. And every move counts.